I know I am not the first, and I certainly will not be the last, to scream into the void about this game, but as I'm starting to come back to EMC I figure I should talk about the main reason I vanished. ARK: Survival Evolved! Tame prehistoric or mythical creatures, breed them, make them fight other fearsome beasts or perhaps even other players! Join up with your friends to create something known as a tribe and work together to own the map you decide to play on! Whether you're playing PVP or PVE determines how you get that done, but either way, it's no easy feat! Sounds fun, right? Hell yeah. It sounds amazing! But let me tell you about my experience. Back in the start of 2018, I started playing on an official PVP server. This was an ORP cluster, or offline raid protected, cluster. In theory, this means that when you log out, your dinos and your base are safe (after a 15-minute timer, to prevent you from abusing it by logging out if you get attacked), so you can still live a normal human life outside of the virtual world. IN THEORY, that's how it was supposed to be. You tame some dinos, you plunk yourself down a base, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, all's rosy and happy! Right? Nah. A base that you, as a new player, could get standing in even a day will not offer you protection from other players around. If someone wants to drop your newbie base that took you a week to get up, they can in less than 15 minutes, the timer you get when you log off. But let's say nobody jumps you and you make it to beta or alpha tribe status. You got stacked bases, you got strong dinos! You're doing well for yourself, buckaroo! You put your stuff up and log out for the night. The next day, you eat your breakfast, maybe it's a nice and pretty Saturday. You log in to pick up where you left off.... You find you're handcuffed to a bed and enemy dinos are already in your base. Turrets are shooting all over the place and stuff starts blowing up. This is because while nobody can HARM your base while you are offline raid protected, they can still get in it. If you have even a tiny hole leading into your base, enemies can get through it. Then, because you can store dinos in what are essentially pokeballs, the enemy can then throw out tons of dinos in your base, destroying it from the inside out and taking everything that took you months or even years to build. This game allows players to destroy what takes months and years of concerted teamwork to create... and it encourages you to play daily, for multiple hours a day. If you check "Looking for tribes" pages for ARK, you'll find plenty of posts that say they'll only consider people who can play 6+ hours a day. It is absolute madness. I have woken up multiple times throughout the night for weeks on end before to "imprint" dinos (you interact with it enough, it gets permanent stat raises, as well as a buff when you ride it when it is an adult). I've woken up out of a dead sleep to help with PVP fights and the like. I've called out sick at work to do the same. This game is VICIOUSLY addictive and if you are especially at risk for addictive behaviors, it can destroy - and has destroyed, in the case of many people I've met - lives. Time does not stop on the server you play on, so time is always moving there. You have to keep everything manually fed and power running. If you are in ORP, you have to fear people glitching or meshing into bases and waking up to an enemy already in your home; if you're on normal PVP where you don't get offline raid protection, you can be wiped overnight or while you're at work, all those hours of work going down the drain without you ever getting the chance to defend yourself. Many argue that it's because the game is designed to play with a large group of people - but then fail to understand that not everyone has multiple friends from various timezones to keep someone able to defend the tribe at all given points in time... Anyway. Why am I writing this? I don't think ARK is a horrible game. It's a super fun concept, and on a well-taken care of unofficial, it can be quite nice. I can't imagine PVE is as horribly life-ruining, as you don't have to worry about anyone destroying your stuff there, aside from some abuse of game mechanics that can be reported and the offenders dealt with... Singleplayer is also fine, since you can just close the game and be done with it whenever you want. But at least when it comes to OFFICIAL PVP, this game is horrible. It is designed to sink its teeth into you, lock its jaws, and never let go, and you're stuck until it's ripped you to pieces. Gaming addiction is a real thing - and for me, it was ARK: Survival Evolved. I failed multiple classes in college, lost a job, and am incredibly physically unhealthy nowadays, because I didn't take care of myself following a bout with a sickness. So, I suppose the reason I am writing this is.... maybe some of you have had similar experiences in ARK, or perhaps to warn people who were thinking about hopping into official PVP to STAY AWAY. Run away screaming. I legitimately don't think this is something anyone needs in their life, ever, lol. As for me... I'm going to try to stick to games where there are no repercussions for closing it at any given moment. Minecraft is, thankfully, one of them. Does anyone else have any recommendations for games like that? Perhaps singleplayer ones if possible?
Ark hehe, so i will admit ive been out of practice with the game mostly cause my current hardware makes playing the game strenuous. i can't deny PVP can be tremendously fun when having a group and using your uber powerful tames to crush enemies, but that is one can of worms ive evaded for awhile. I'm more of a PVE person cause I happen to be a fan of the collecting aspect, especially engaging in breeding projects to do great stuff with well, a variety of creatures. And as far as ive went through, PVE is enough an experience to get killed from difficulty perspectives xD
